Partners of Necessity
by probablylostrightnow
Summary: Tali'Zorah and Kal'Reegar need Miranda Lawson's help to rescue a lost quarian ship and crew. Their cargo may be essential to the quarian war effort - but can they trust Miranda's motives?
1. Chapter 1

_I hate Illium_, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy thought as she scanned passing pedestrians. After months back with the Flotilla, the relative emptiness of the open-air plaza was disconcerting. Conversations buzzed around her in the small cafés. Most of those she overheard involved business deals, some of which would probably have devastating effects on people beneath the notice of the ones around her. She and her companion were the only quarians in sight. Since arriving on Illium, they'd only seen a few of their people at a distance. She hoped they weren't trapped in indentured servitude contracts or worse.

Tali noticed a nervous-looking asari wearing a fairly plain bodysuit and a visor who appeared to be headed for the café door. Tali gestured at her. "Do you think she's our contact? Don't tell me that visor is her idea of a disguise."

"It does hide one or two of her facial markings, ma'am," Kal'Reegar said in a deadpan voice. In her time working with him, Tali had concluded that he preferred his humor so dry that he could plausibly deny its existence.

The visor-wearing asari scurried over to their table and looked between the two quarians uncertainly. "One of you must be Tali'Zorah," she said.

Tali gave her a nod. "I'm Tali. Do you have the logs I asked for?"

"I do," the asari answered, holding out an OSD. "But…" She paused, shifting from foot to foot.

"But _what_?" Tali pressed.

"There was a fault in the power conduit leading to the camera. So there's a gap in the recording until power was rerouted."

Tali sighed. "Let me guess. The _Marra_ took off during the gap in the recording."

"I'm afraid so." The asari frowned, still holding out the OSD. "I can give you a discount in view of the circumstances, but you still owe me the copying and conveyance payment."

Tali took merciless advantage of the asari's eagerness to leave to shave off half of the demanded price. Transferring the payment to her omni-tool still hurt. As soon as the transaction was complete, the asari said a perfunctory goodbye and headed for the door.

"How is the bribe fund holding up, ma'am?" Kal asked.

"You mean the fee for expedited access to information fund?" Tali asked. Every official they'd talked to seemed to have a more extravagant justification for the money they needed to hand over. Bribery might be commonplace here, but keelah, everyone would rather die than let the word "bribe" pass their lips. She sighed again as her suit helpfully displayed the dwindling balance on the credit chip. "More than half gone. I'd feel better if I thought it was getting us anywhere."

"We should look at the video," Kal said with forced hopefulness. "Even if the departure's missing, there might be some clue to what happened and where the _Marra _has gone."

Tali brought up the recording with a few taps on her omni-tool. Dock 26C appeared in all its dingy glory. She took a second to count the ships. "Six ships, including the _Marra_," she reported to Kal. "That matches the docking records."

Kal was silent. Tali thought he was probably focused on the video, but couldn't be sure of his thoughts. Not for the first time or in the first context, she wished she could take his helmet off.

He finally spoke. "Not much to see, is there?"

There was no activity on the dock. Tali sped up the playback, then sped it up again as the scene remained inactive. She paused it as she saw a group of five suited figures emerge from the _Marra_.

"Looks like the engineering team, plus two soldiers. That would leave three on board the _Marra_."

"Does it have a time stamp?" Kal asked.

Tali checked the video's metadata and triggered the time display. Kal nodded at it. "That fits the time Nos Astra Fabrication said the team came to pick up the finished parts."

It was good to know that the clerk at the fabricator hadn't been lying about the team picking up the parts at all, but that didn't bring them any closer to the _Marra_. Tali resumed playback. Three short, round figures, one hauling a cart, passed close to the camera and boarded the ship moored next to the _Marra_, which left a few minutes later.

"That looks like the _Bountiful Exchange_," Tali noted. They had already checked the passenger and cargo manifests for the volus trade vessel, finding nothing suspicious.

Tali sped through more footage of nothing, then the video flickered, the time stamp abruptly jumped forward, and the _Marra _disappeared. She paused the video again. "Nothing," she said. "I'll do a more detailed analysis of the video and see if I pick up anything else, but it doesn't look promising."

"What next, ma'am?"

Tali sighed once more. "I'm thinking of trying to get into the fabricator's records."

"You think they might be hiding something?"

"They certainly didn't seem concerned that their merchandise disappeared moments after they sold it to us." _For far too large a share of the Fleet's resources_. "And assuming that whoever grabbed the _Marra_ knew what they were getting, they either got a tip from the fabricators, or from within the Fleet itself. No one else knew why the ship was here."

"Tali'Zorah?" The voice was human, and female, and very familiar, but so unexpected that it took Tali a moment to place it.

"Operative Lawson," Tali said slowly, switching off the video as unobtrusively as she could.

"Just Miranda Lawson now, please. I'm no longer anyone's operative." Miranda pulled up a chair and dropped into it.

Tali looked her over. Miranda was wearing a red asari-style dress which struck her as incongruous; Miranda ought to be in black and white. She looked pleased to see Tali, which struck her as immediately suspicious. She had made no secret of her antipathy for Shepard's former XO. Miranda might have renounced Cerberus in the end, but the memory of all the times she defended the organization still rankled.

"Have you heard anything from Shepard?" Miranda asked.

Tali shook her head. "Nothing new. Apparently she's still under house arrest on the human homeworld. I get the impression they can't figure out what to do with her."

"A pack of idiots," Miranda muttered. "So, Tali, what brings you to Illium?"

Tali shrugged. "Kal and I are running errands for the Admiralty Board. The usual." Kal made a quiet noise that sounded a bit like a strangled cough. Tali wasn't ready to share her promotion with Miranda – certainly not without a better sense of what she was doing here.

Miranda turned to Kal. "Kal'Reegar, if I'm remembering correctly. We met briefly on Haestrom. I'm glad you appear to have made a full recovery."

Kal nodded to Miranda, but left it to Tali to respond. She decided to press for some answers. "What brings _you_ to Illium, Miranda? I would have thought you'd be avoiding public spaces like this. Cerberus assassins can be very persistent, I'm told."

She was rewarded with a slight furrowing of Miranda's perfect brow. "They're looking for me, but I'm also looking for them. I received word that a Cerberus operation was going on in the Tasale system, one involving a significant commitment of resources."

"A Cerberus operation?" Tali asked. She was sure Miranda wouldn't be telling her this unless she needed something.

"Indeed. They seem to have seized a quarian ship." Miranda gave a slight smile. "I had hoped, in fact, that you might be investigating its disappearance."

Tali doubted that _hope_ had anything to do it. She wondered nervously what Miranda could tell from her body language; she'd always feared that the biotic could read her right through the suit. Espionage was not her strength. _Give me a tough fight or an impossible hack, instead. _She wished for a moment for Shepard, who was as adept as talking her way out of a situation as winning an impossible fight, but who left the hacking to her and Garrus.

Miranda's gaze was burning through her helmet. Tali swallowed. If it gave her any chance to recover the parts for Xen, she had to play along. "The Admiralty Board _did_ mention that we should keep an eye out for a missing ship. I believe it was the _Marra_?"

"Yes, the _Marra_. Cerberus purloined it, and they covered their tracks well. I've worked with Popescu, the operative leading this one. She's… competent." Miranda frowned. Was she disappointed that the Cerberus operative was competent, or was she not competent enough to meet Miranda's standards? Tali couldn't tell. "But I have a good idea where they've taken her."

"How do you know?" Tali asked skeptically. "I can't imagine that you still have access to Cerberus data, now that you've left them." _If she had…_

"My codes, passwords, and contacts were all burned," Miranda said calmly. "But Cerberus doesn't know about all of the information in my head, and changing physical locations is a lot more effort than changing codes. I know of three bases in this system that they might have used, and going through sensor data only shows activity at one of them."

Her wording suggested that the ship was more likely in space, not somewhere on Illium. But with hundreds of stations at the L4 and L5 points alone, it didn't do enough to narrow down the possibilities. Tali tried to feign reluctance. "If you give us the location, we can probably take the time to check it out."

Miranda gave a quick, sharp shake of her head. "No. Not unless you take me with you."

"What's your interest in a missing quarian ship?" Tali asked.

"That ship is important to Cerberus, and I…" Miranda gave a predatory smile. "I am invested in Cerberus's failure. They're working on something new, something on a massive scale. If I can get my hands on this project, I can track what I find to other projects, and eventually bring the whole thing down."

She sounded sincere, but Tali couldn't think of a time when Miranda _hadn't_ sounded sincere, and something still didn't add up. "Why are you here, then? Why haven't you gone to check it out already?"

"If I tried, I'd be detected and destroyed long before I could dock. I'd need the _Normandy_ to approach undetected, and I doubt that the Alliance would be willing to loan her to me. I have some resources, but they don't include a ship with stealth capabilities."

_She knows_. _Keelah, how does she know?_ She could see from the tense set of Kal'Reegar's shoulders that he was wondering the same thing.

"I think I see." She wasn't about to discuss secret quarian ship capabilities in public.

"Excellent." The smile looked less predatory, but it didn't reach Miranda's eyes. "Let me know when you're ready to leave Illium. Once we're in space, I'll give you the coordinates."

Miranda could certainly be helpful, assuming that she was on the level. Tali wasn't at all confident in that assumption. "You're not worried that we'll drop you off" – _or put you out the airlock_ – "once we know the coordinates?"

"_Tali_." Miranda's eyes still weren't smiling. "That wouldn't be any way to treat an old friend, would it?"


	2. Chapter 2

The _Semmel_ hung in space, the orange-brown clouds of Naxell passing beneath it. Tali, Kal, and Miranda ignored the splendor of the gas giant, focused on the sensor data from derelict mining station A-7.

"It was originally built to mine helium-3 from the planet. The companies that built it went bankrupt decades ago, and the technology's too outdated for anyone to be interested in it now," Miranda had explained. "Cerberus picked it up for next to nothing – through shell companies, of course. An unobserved position near Illium is useful to them." Tali had noticed the slight hesitation before "them," when Miranda might once have said "us."

They had flown to Naxell and matched orbits with the station without incident. Miranda had spent most of the flight prying for information about the _Semmel_'s IES system. She was clearly very interested in how the quarians had managed to equip stealth technology on an even smaller ship than the _Normandy_. Here Tali wasn't required to be evasive, because she genuinely didn't know the answers to Miranda's questions. She had passed on her notes on the _Normandy_'s technology, but she hadn't been involved in the design of the _Semmel_ and her sister ships.

She hoped that Miranda wouldn't be on board the _Semmel_ for long. The scout ship's IES and drive core occupied most of the hull, leaving the living space cramped. There was neither storage for levo food nor sleeping spaces suitable for beings that didn't wear envirosuits. And as was usual for quarian ship designs, there was an absolute minimum of privacy. These all struck Tali as good reasons to find a way on board station A-7 as soon as possible.

Tali gestured to the schematic of the station displayed on the viewscreen. "It looks like they've only powered up these sectors at the top part of the station," she said. "They're mostly quarters and life support, plus a pair of hangars. The mining, processing, and cargo-loading sectors are still shut down. There are possible docking points for the _Semmel_ there, but without power we'd have to force our way in, and that would run a risk of detection."

"It sounds like you have another approach in mind," Miranda said.

Tali gestured at Miranda's combat hard-suit. For the mission, she had changed back into her familiar black and white. The Cerberus insignia had been carefully excised from the armor. "Can your suit hold against hard vacuum?"

Miranda frowned a little. "Yes, although… I'm not certain I like where you might be going with that question."

Tali smiled at her, even if the effect was lost given the helmet. "You had to know there was a chance you'd be going out the airlock."

Getting everything read took them almost a quarter-watch. Tali fretted over every delay, fearing what Cerberus might be doing to their captives. Realistically, she knew that careful preparation was important and that this delay was minor next to the time she and Kal had already wasted on Illium. That last thought wasn't particularly reassuring.

The _Semmel_'s tiny airlock didn't have room for three. Since Tali was nominally the ship's captain, Kal and Miranda went out first. While the airlock cycled, Tali checked in one last time with the three crew members staying on board. All had offered to accompany them, but Tali wasn't confident in their combat training. A three-person squad seemed optimal for the close quarters aboard the station, in any case. She had gotten used to the way Shepard did things.

The airlock was ready; she stepped in and waited for it to cycle, then emerged into space. Kal and Miranda were clinging to handholds some distance aft of the airlock. Tali swung over to join them, and Kal clipped a tether to her suit. He briefly leaned over so that their helmets were touching.

"Lock your suit when you're ready, ma'am," he said.

Tali gave the voice command to her suit, and its material went from flexible to rigid. Kal took both women's arms and gently pushed off from the _Semmel_ so that the trio slowly separated from it. Looking ahead, Tali could see the bulk of the mining station, but her view of the top was, according to plan, blocked by the quarian ship. Kal was moved about, making minute adjustments to the orientation of the three spacewalkers. Tali started up the orbital mechanics program in her suit; Kal knew what he was doing, but it had been thoroughly drilled into her that program results should always be double-checked.

Once Kal was satisfied with their position, he fired a quick burst from his maneuvering thruster. The _Semmel_ slowly slid away above them as the gap between them and station A-7 began to narrow. Save for the low hum of Tali's suit, everything was silent. The lack of engine noise felt strange, subtly wrong. She asked the suit for verbal readouts of the distance to the station every 100 meters; the repetition of the mechanical voice was oddly soothing.

The station loomed before them. _600 meters… 500 meters… 400 meters_…The pockmarked metal surface filled Tali's forward view. She unlocked the suit – no danger that movement would cause them to miss the station now – and magnetized its arms and legs. _200 meters… 100 meters…_ The station reached out for her, and she hit the surface with a jarring thud despite the suit's attempts to cushion her. The magnetic locks held her close to the hull. On her right, Kal'Reegar hit the hull in the same way, but Miranda rebounded off the station and started drifting away. The tether holding her to Kal went taut and strained, but held, and he pulled her back in.

Miranda touched helmets with Tali. "I'm sorry," she said. "The magnets didn't hold." Her voice was composed, but her eyes were a bit wide. It was both shocking and oddly endearing for Tali to think that Miranda might be afraid of something. She gave Miranda a nod. Her hard-suit didn't have all the capabilities of a quarian envirosuit; there was no point in blaming her for that.

Kal started up the laser drill and placed it against the hull. After a moment, he turned off the drill, shook his head, and shifted over. Tali shifted over and illuminated the small hole with her suit lamp. It led into an enclosed bulkhead full of machinery. Kal had moved over a few meters and appeared to have found a better place to enter – he already had a hole wide enough to accept a quarian half-outlined with the laser drill. He completed the circle with the drill, shut it off, and gave the disk of metal a gentle push. Still glowing around the edges, it disappeared into the station's interior.

The three of them let the metal cool before carefully slipping into the hole, wary of sharp edges that could puncture their suits. Tali unwrapped one of the temporary patches they'd taken from the _Semmel_'s supply. She stretched it to cover the hole, then moved her hand along its edge to create a molecular seal with the metal of the station's hull. Miranda had questioned the necessity of sealing the hull breach behind them, but Tali and Kal had successfully argued that this would lower the chances of their entry point being spotted. If she had suspected that a quarian reluctance to leave an unpatched hole in a ship was also a factor, she had stayed silent.

The interior of the station was still. Occasionally the floor transmitted a low vibration through the bottoms of Tali's boots, but there was no atmosphere to carry other sounds, and they did not dare risk radio contact. They plodded through the station, Miranda in the lead, passing through vast chambers full of dormant machinery. Tali constantly checked their progress against the rough schematic they had drawn up based on their scans and Miranda's knowledge of the place. She noticed with disapproval how many bulkhead doors had been left open when the station was abandoned. Her people would never have decommissioned a ship in such a sloppy manner.

There was little sign when they reached the boundary of the inhabited part of the station – just a bulkhead door with a few blue and red lights glowing on it, where the other doors they encountered had been dark. This was what they had expected, and they knew that forcing it would most likely alert everyone on the station to their presence. Tali felt along the wall next to the door until she found the cover on a data port. Nothing happened when she pulled on it. It had frozen in place, and she had to pry it away from the wall using a lever extruded from her omni-tool.

The port cleared, she connected her omni-tool to it. The 'tool easily recognized the archaic interface – in the Migrant Fleet, an interface that _wasn't_ archaic would be an oddity – and suppressed the intrusion countermeasures that attempted to fire. Cerberus had definitely been in the system, augmenting the security and linking it to their own systems, but after her time on the _Normandy_, Tali was highly familiar with Cerberus security. They might have updated their codes and ciphers, but the basic architecture hand't changed. She looped the security readout on the door so that it would continue to read as closed, disabled the atmospheric sensors in the room beyond, and finally sent an override command to the door itself.

The door ground open, followed by a howling rush of air. Tali, Kal, and Miranda hurried through the door, and Kal punched the panel to seal it. Tali checked the atmospheric readouts in her suit and nodded in satisfaction – there had been a notable pressure drop, but the effect on the station as a whole shouldn't have been picked up. The room they had punched into was empty as expected. There were many doors into the powered part of the station, and Cerberus didn't have the manpower to post guards at all of them. Probably they didn't consider an incursion from within the station likely, if they'd thought about the possibility at all.

Miranda pulled off her helmet. "Good work, Tali," she said crisply.

"Thank you," Tali said absently as she reconnected her omni-tool to the Cerberus security systems. "Hmm. It looks like the Cerberus activity is concentrated in two areas. There's a dorm in the living quarters… Hold on… It looks like they've got a mech in there; I think I can get a video feed from it…"

Projected from her omni-tool, the scene came to grainy life. A sleeping area had been converted to a makeshift prison. The robot's view was fixed on a group of quarians who had been locked into a room intended for two workers. They slumped against the walls, suffering, Tali guessed, from abuse or malnutrition – but still moving, their suits still showing vitals, still _alive_. She let out a breath that she hadn't known she was holding.

In the foreground, three bored-looking Cerberus troopers were sitting at a table, sparing their charges only the occasional glance. As far as she could tell from the low-quality image, they were playing Skyllian-five. The sight brought back a nostalgic memory of winning credits from Daniel and Donnelly in the Normandy's engine room. They had been too used to watching faces for tells.

"I count five prisoners, ma'am," Kal reported. "Looks like the ship's crew, but none of the engineering team. You said there were two areas of activity?"

"Yes, it looks like they're also using a hangar, but…" She gave a frustrated shrug. "I can't get any information on it. It looks like they've cut it off entirely from the station network. It's completely signal-dead."

"Does that mean they have no communication with those guards?" Miranda asked, gesturing at the card players.

Tali thought for a moment. "Not necessarily. They might have run a dedicated line between the areas."

"If they did, could we cut it?" Miranda asked.

"Probably," Tali said. "When they tried to communicate over it, though, they'd know something was wrong. I don't know how often they're checking in."

Kal said, "I'd recommend we cut the line, free the captured crew, and then move on the hangar. They look to be in poor condition, but they can at least guard our backs – and they might have some intel about what we're heading into."

"I think we should cut the line and hit the hangar first," Miranda said. "Their C&amp;C is probably there. If we take out their leadership, they won't be able to respond effectively."

"They might panic and start shooting their prisoners," Kal countered.

"Please believe I don't want that," Miranda said. "But if the other quarians are in the hangar, we run that risk either way."

Tali considered. Admiral Xen would definitely say that the engineering team was their top priority, but Kal was probably right that the crew, despite their condition, would make useful support. Keelah, how did Shepard make these decisions look so easy? She had to decide, and the state of the prisoners on the video swayed her. "Kal, we'll go with your plan. We free the prisoners, and then move on the hangar immediately."

She half-expected Miranda to argue, but she gave a quick nod of agreement. She remembered the many times she had seen Miranda give Shepard the same nod, once the Commander had made a decision. It came as a shock to realize she was being shown the same respect.

They set off down the dingy corridors of the station, Kal taking point. Finding the dedicated comm line proved trivial – Cerberus had run a cable under the door of the living quarters and down the hallway. Tali wondered why Cerberus had gone to this effort instead of using the existing network infrastructure, which her scans showed to be perfectly intact.

"On the count of three, I'll cut this and we'll hit the door," she said, keeping her voice low. "I'll handle the mech; you two, focus on taking down the troopers."

Kal saluted her in acknowledgement; Miranda settled for a quick nod.

"One, two, three!" Tali counted, and used her omni-blade to cut through the cable. Kal and Miranda hit the door seconds later, Tali just behind them, already setting up the power surge from her omni-tool. As the door open, Tali spotted the YMIR mech turning to target them and triggered the power surge. Energy ripped into the mech, overwhelming its shields and triggering a flurry of sparks from its head. The mech staggered and stumbled, and Tali unleashed two shotgun blasts into its head. Its central processing unit obliterated – and how did putting that in the head ever survive the design committee? – the mech collapsed.

None of the Cerberus troopers had made it out of their chairs, their bodies shredded by the combined power of shotgun blasts and gravitational anomalies. (After her time with Shepard, Tali thought she was probably one of the galaxy's experts in the effects of gravitational anomalies.) Any sympathy she might have felt for the outgunned enemies was stifled as she looked at their prisoners. Their envirosuits were covered with warning lights, flashing in angry greens and ambers. Tali and Kal ran for the door to their makeshift cell. Overriding the simple lock took only a moment, and then they were inside and cutting the prisoners free of their restraints.

"A-Admiral?" one of them gasped, taking in Tali's suit. Miranda raised her eyebrows.

Tali scanned her suit in turn and found the rank markings she was looking for. "Captain Loesa'Vasel vas Marra?" she asked.

"That's me," the captain confirmed. "You have to get to the engineering team. Cerberus is using them for some sort of… project…" She took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Do you know what Cerberus is doing here?" Tali asked.

"No. But they knew why we were on Illium… about the cargo, Admiral Xen's device… They threatened us to get the engineers to cooperate… the only reason they left us alive…"

"Do you know where the engineering team is?"

"No, I'm sorry…"

"It's all right." Tali surveyed the quarians again. In their condition, they'd be more liability than help in combat. "Captain, I need you and your two strongest crew members to hold this point. Take their weapons," she gestured to the Cerberus dead, "and if anyone but us comes through the door, open fire. Understood?"

Captain Vasel nodded. "Yes, Admiral."

Tali reflected that Miranda might have been right that they should hit the hangar first, but this was no time to dwell on that. She appreciated that Miranda wasn't bringing it up. "Miranda, Kal, let's move. We need to get to that hangar before they realize something's wrong here."

"Admiral…" Captain Vasel paused for breath. "Make them pay."

"Keelah se'lai, we will," Tali said, and then she and her squad were jogging back down the corridor. _At least_, she thought, _the cable should lead us right there_.

Miranda cleared her throat. "Admiral?"

"It's just a formality," Tali said. Her face flushed red, and she was glad again for the concealing envirosuit. "I'm really not… you know, this is no time to discuss this."

"Later, then," Miranda said, with an expression that Shepard would have called "smirking."

Ahead of them, the cable disappeared under another access door. Tali raised her omni-tool to scan it. "Locked," she reported. "I should be able to override it, but I don't know if I can do it without alerting them. Be ready."

Her team nodded acknowledgement, moving up to flank the door. Despite the unknown territory beyond the door, there was a sense of comfort in having a squad she could absolutely rely on. It was so different from her first command on Freedom's Progress. Was this feeling the source of Shepard's famous confidence?

The door opened in response to her override, and Tali heard human voices shouting. Miranda and Kal darted through the door and took cover behind pallets full of crates and boxes. Tali moved up to take cover by the doorframe and quickly surveyed the room. What she saw stopped her in her tracks.


	3. Chapter 3

The hangar was half-full of tables covered in machinery. Tali didn't recognize most of it at a glance, but it was the central tables that had arrested her attention. They held geth parts, including 5 or 6 nearly intact platforms and the parts for at least several more.

Cerberus was experimenting on the geth. After the _Alarei_, after Aite… Cerberus had rarely seemed able to resist a bad idea, but _this_… At least it explained why this room had been so thoroughly cut off from the network. Tali doubted this precaution would make much difference if the geth in this room awakened.

She jerked back from the door on hearing the crack of bullets by her head. Both Cerberus soldiers and scientists had taken cover behind the tables and started firing. Three quarians chained to the central tables were doing their best to take cover as well. "Kal, Miranda, watch the friendlies!" she yelled as she deployed her combat drone. "Go get 'em, Chatika!" Chatika sped off to engage a cluster of Cerberus troopers on their right.

Miranda wreathed herself in dark energy that colored the white parts of her armor blue-black. As she reached her hand out, Cerberus troops fell, writhing in pain, easy targets for Kal's rifle shots. Miranda was taking some fire, but the biotic energy around her seemed to be protecting her. She and Kal had the attention of the troopers on the left, so Tali moved up toward Chatika. Her drone was darting from target to target, evading enemy fire and holding their attention. So intent were the troopers on the drone that they didn't notice Tali until two quick shots from her shotgun took two of them down.

Tali ducked behind a table and changed out the thermal clip, then leaned back out with her shotgun. She couldn't see Chatika – one of the troopers must have brought her down – so she quickly emptied the gun at the troopers in front of her, then ducked back. One enemy rounded the corner while she was still reloading, but there was a crack from Kal's direction and the trooper fell back, helmet shattered. She could always trust Kal to watch her six.

The Cerberus defenses were in disarray. Most of the troopers were down, and the rest were more concerned with taking cover than with pressing the attack. But Tali could only see two of the quarian captives – where was the third? After a moment, she realized he had been grabbed by a human woman wearing a Cerberus officer's uniform who was crouched down behind a console. Tali let go of her shotgun and leveled her pistol at the officer. "Let him go!" Tali called.

"I don't think so," the officer replied. "Why don't you put the gun down before I shoot your friend in the head?"

Miranda stepped out from behind the pallet. "It's over, Popescu. Don't think I won't shoot you, hostage or no. Let him go and step away from the console."

Popescu sneered. "You chose the wrong side, Lawson." She ducked further down, pulling her hostage over her.

Tali shifted, trying to find an open shot. What was Popescu fiddling with?

A high-pitched whine that put Tali's nerves on edge filled the hangar. Popescu spoke again, her voice amplified. "Priority command. Destroy the intruders."

She had barely said the words when her head exploded. She slumped to the floor, dropping her hostage. Kal, now flanking Cerberus, lifted his rifle to change the thermal clip.

"Great shot! The rest of you, drop your weapons…" Tali stopped, her gut twisting.

The geth platforms on the table were moving.

Tali hurled herself back into cover as geth weapons fire shredded her previous position. She felt a surge of indignation. Cerberus had not only experimented on geth, but left them _armed_? And heavily armed, too, she noted as the bullets smacking into her makeshift shelter left dents and bulges in the metal table. She rolled to another table, the weapons fire following her, and glanced around at her squad. Both had gotten behind cover – Kal a table, Miranda one of the pallets – but were just as pinned down by geth fire as she was. The Cerberus remnants, emboldened by the change in the situation, were standing up and taking shots at them as well.

Now the memories of Freedom's Progress and Haestrom were far too present in Tali's mind. She had been locked away while the geth whittled away her squad to nothing. What had the Admiralty Board been thinking when they put her in charge of another mission? She vowed that, at least, she wouldn't walk away from the bodies of her fallen comrades this time.

"Kal, Miranda, fall back!" she transmitted.

"Negative!" Kal said through her suit speakers. "If you're the only targetin the room, they'll take you down in seconds!"

"This is an order, Marine! Fall back!"

The weapons fire abruptly stopped. "Belay that," Tali ordered as she peeked around the table. The geth were replacing their weapons' thermal clips, though the Cerberus troops were keeping up staccato fire. Tali prepped a pulse on her omni-tool and released it at the same time Miranda fired her own tech mine. Shields around the geth flared and went down. Tali heard the crack of Kal's rifle taking one of the platforms out, but the rest were already resuming fire. Tali dropped back down.

The weapons fire against her shelter seemed much lighter. Tali dared a glance from behind cover. The geth had started firing indiscriminately at every organic in the room. The Cerberus forces, having left themselves totally exposed on that flank, were cut down in seconds.

Oh no – one of the quarian captives was down too, his envirosuit soaked with red. He wouldn't last long without help. At least the geth had improved her squad's odds by removing Cerberus from the picture. She toggled her radio again. "Kal, Miranda, next time they're changing out thermal clips, we move in and hit their position with everything we've got." She bent over her omni-tool, maximizing the power generation and turning off the safeties, ticking off seconds in her head. She needed to fire as soon as the geth stopped firing, which should be just about…

She stood, one last bullet rebounding off her shields, and triggered the routine. The geth shields flickered and went down with an audible crash. Her omni-tool flashed and went dead, suddenly burning hot against her arm. The suit's shield generators whined from the sudden influx of energy but held. Tali triggered medi-gel to suppress the pain from her blistering arm and ran forward, emptying her pistol into the geth at point-blank range. Kal's shotgun barked beside her and biotic energy flared from Miranda's fingertips. Their assault did not slacken until nothing was moving on the table.

Kal and Tali ran to the side of the fallen captive. He was gasping for breath, the front of his suit soaked with blood. Kal bent to examine him while Tali brought her helmet up to his.

"The box… the music box…" he hissed.

"What?" Tali asked in confusion.

"For my daughter… it plays the theme… from her favorite show. Please… give it to her…"

Tali thought his priorities seemed badly out of order, but she wasn't inclined to argue with a possibly dying man. "How is he, Kal?"

"I won't make it… all my medi-gel used… still hurts… tell my daughter…"

"You'll be able to tell her yourself," Kal broke in. "Ma'am, it looks like his medi-gel reservoir was holed when he was hit, so he didn't actually get dosed. I'm connecting him up to mine now. That should stabilize him long enough for us to get him back to the fleet."

The researcher slumped into unconsciousness as Kal got the medi-gel flowing into his suit. Tali turned to the other two quarians, who appeared shaken but basically unharmed, better fed than the crew. "What's the status of Xen's supplies?" She gestured at the shredded and smoking remains of the pallets. "Were those the parts she needed?"

"No, Cerberus took a few of them, but I think the rest are still on the _Marra_." It was Popescu's former hostage – Dar'Zaun, the lead engineer, if Tali was remembering the crew manifest right – who answered. "We should have enough for Admiral Xen to construct her ladar jammers. But Admiral Zorah, it's more important that we secure Cerberus's research materials."

"Why? What exactly were they working on?" Tali asked.

Dar'Zaun bent and lifted a small piece of machinery. "This." It looked like the core of one of Xen's jammers, but there were parts bolted to it that Tali didn't recognize, that somehow made her head hurt as she studied them. She realized that this was what Popescu had triggered as her last act.

"It looks like Reaper technology," Miranda said with a frown.

"I think so, combined with the Admiral's jamming device," Dar'Zaun confirmed. "From what I was able to gather, Cerberus thinks that they can use it to modify the device to broadcast a signal that will let them control the geth."

"Control the geth? Cerberus didn't give them up?" Miranda was outright scowling now. Tali thought that she, too, was remembering Aite. "Where did they even secure geth for experimentation?"

"Apparently they were salvaged from a space station that Commander Shepard destroyed."

_Heretic Station_, Tali thought. Miranda's expression got even more sour, and Tali guessed she was coming to the same conclusion.

"Admiral Zorah, this device should be returned to the Flotilla," Dar'Zaun continued. "This device is just a prototype…"

"We saw that it's not reliable," Miranda put in, gesturing at the fallen Cerberus scientists.

"But there were multiple successful trials, and the design could be improved, refined. Think of what this could do for our people!"

"Encourage them to attack the geth and get massacred?" Miranda asked.

No quarian in the hangar ventured an answer to that.

"That struck a nerve," Miranda said. "You're… you're getting ready to move on the geth, aren't you? And I thought Cerberus was taking stupid risks! Tali, you know what Shepard would say about this…"

_Nothing I haven't already said to the Admiralty Board, _Tali thought. Aloud, she said, "I can't discuss what my people might or might not be planning. But… we do need to investigate this technology."

"Take the data, then. I _need_ this prototype," Miranda said. "Analyzing and sourcing the tech in it will lead me to more Cerberus operations. Surely you can agree they need to be stopped, after what you've seen here."

Dar'Zaun was tapping on Popescu's console. "That bosh'tet – excuse me, Admiral – she wiped all of their systems. There's no data left, and they never let us handle any of the Reaper technology that went into that device. We need the prototype if we're to have any chance of recreating what they did."

"It's _Reaper_ technology," Miranda argued. "Do you want to risk ending up with ships full of indoctrinated quarians, Tali? Think about what we've seen."

"Cerberus transported the Reaper technology in shielded crates," Dar'Zaun said. He gestured to a small stack of crates with warning labels in the far corner of the room. "Popescu was careful to minimize exposure to the technology, and they showed no signs of being affected. We should be able to safely transport and study the prototype."

"Tali, it's not safe to bring this back to the Migrant Fleet. And I _need_ it." Miranda was as discomposed as Tali had ever seen her.

"I'm sorry, Miranda," Tali said. "I must bring this back to my people. You have to understand that."

Miranda looked over the five quarians in the hangar, and her attitude relaxed. "Yes, I do." She handed the device to the Dar'Zaun. "Please load this into a shielded crate, and be careful with it. You and your fellows have already had some exposure to it. Tali… Admiral Zorah, I'm going to find and take the Cerberus ship. With your permission, of course. I may be able to glean some information about Cerberus activities, or use it to infiltrate another op."

Tali nodded. "Take it. And… Miranda? It's been good working with you."

Miranda smiled. "With you, as well. Take care of the Flotilla, Tali. They'll need you."

* * *

Miranda was off the station within half a watch, but it took three full watches to prep the _Marra_ and her malnourished, injured crew for travel. Tali and Kal took the shielded crates on board the _Semmel_, leaving the rest of the cargo on board the _Marra_ for the return to the Migrant Fleet. They were a watch underway when they started to hear the music.

"Where is that coming from?" Tali asked, straining to hear the chiming, tinkling music. It reminded her of the theme music of a show from her childhood, the show that had given Chatika her name. "Do you think it might be that music box?" They had never found the scientist's gift for her daughter. Kal and Tali had persuaded him, with difficulty, that she would be happy enough to have him come home alive.

There was little else that needed doing while the ship was in flight, so Kal, Tali, and their crew began searching through the _Semmel_. The sound was muffled and difficult to trace, but eventually there was no disputing where it was coming from: the sealed crate containing the Cerberus prototype.

"How did it get in _there_, of all places?" Tali wondered. Later, she would think that she already knew the answer, that they all did, but weren't willing to say it.

Kal'Reegar palmed the crate open and they looked down at its contents. Kal was first to speak. "I don't think that's Reaper technology, unless they've taken to watching children's vids."

Tali stared down at the ornamented, tinkling music box, nestled all alone in the crate. Her expected anger was mixed with a surprising feeling of relief; at least she wouldn't be endangering the Migrant Fleet. "That bosh'tet," she said softly. "Somehow, she swapped it out."


	4. Coda

Shepard waited impatiently for the elevator to reach the crew deck. _It's only one deck, it should be faster_.Sanctuary had been an exhausting mission, and she wanted desperately to collapse against Garrus's side. Sam Traynor had made a point of mentioning that Tali had taken the mission hard, though, so Shepard was en route to the port lounge instead. She suppressed a burst of irritation. Even if she couldn't quite see why this particular mission would affect Tali more than any other, Tali was her friend, one of her closest friends. She had shown Shepard her _face_. If she needed company, then Shepard would provide that company.

Tali greeted Shepard as soon as she entered the lounge. She seemed to be drunk, or at least well on her way there, with the aid of… a straw? Or, as Tali insisted with exaggerated care, an _emergency induction port._ Shepard quickly abandoned that argument, and Tali started talking about Miranda.

"She was so rude. What did Jack call her, 'Cerberus cheerleader?' With her perfect genes, and that attitude…"

"She gave me a message for you," Shepard remembered. "She said, 'Tell Tali I wouldn't have gotten to Sanctuary in time without the clues from the device.' Do you have any idea what she was talking about?'"

"Yes," Tali said, slurring a bit. "She's letting me know that she was right, like she always has to be. And keelah, she was. Even if the control device had worked and not indoct… indoc… taken over the Fleet, it wouldn't have worked after the Reapers upgraded the geth."

"What?" Tali might as well be talking nonsense. Was it the turian brandy?

Tali waved her hand. "A story… I should tell you. Sit down." She waved a hand in the general direction of the other barstool. "Have a drink."

_Garrus…_ He would have to wait. Shepard poured herself a glass of whiskey, and clinked her glass against Tali's bottle.

"To that genetically perfect Cerberus cheerleader bosh'tet," Tali said. "Someday she and I will fight side by side again. Keelah se'lai."


End file.
